"RSS David Viner" so children in the future will remember what global warming was all about.

I don't know how much this ice breaker, that we weren't supposed to need, is costing, but just think how many more we could have bought, if we hadn't wasted so much money on 'science' we never knew we needed.

golf charlie I think it is a replacement research vessel with limited ice-breaking capability, any ship in those waters needs some break-out capability, rather than primarily being an icebreaker. The UK has had a long history of Arctic/Antarctic research ships.

SandyS, you are correct, but if maximum publicity is being sought for this ship with this naming competition, it is only fair to provide AGW alarmists with the publicity they normally crave.

HMS Endurance only got publicity as a result of being withdrawn from service, causing Argentina to interpret it as a statement of the UK's feelings towards the Falklands, and that Endurance was named after Shackleton's ship, on the doomed mission as WW1 was breaking out. That Shackleton survived, rescuing all his men, makes him one of Britain's greatest heroes (and seafarers) who is largely unknown.

But ..

RSS Ernest Shackleton is already in service! Based in the Falklands, British Antarctic Survey. Who knew?

Please not the David Viner. His (in)fame lies in predicting snow (lack thereof) not ice. Remember he did this just before the release of satellite imagery showing the entire UK covered in the white stuff. He also, whilst filming climate change at Mullion Cove, took time off to attempt a sea rescue which was unsuccessful, allegedly because of faulty life saving equipment. So not a ice breaker, nor perhaps a lifeboat, but a brave man nonetheless and despite his fantasy climate nightmares.

For lifeboats and lifesaving at sea "Colin Archer", a Scottish Norwegian springs to mind. He designed the Fram, a boat designed to avoid crushing by ice, by being squeezed upwards. The Fram was used by Amundsen, and the Fram Strait is named after it.

Colin Archer's name is still linked to the design of many seaworthy designs, and helped inspire the design of Suhali, the first boat sailed around the world, non-stop, singlehanded by Robin Knox-Johnston

..IMHO Tho for anti-corruption purposes things should not be named after people.................................Capital Radio has been running a campaign to get the joke name to the top so that has 9 times more votes than the next entry

Stewgreen, I'm not aware that the name is from a specific children’s TV program, but I'm not best informed. To me, the joke is that they have suggested a name which is just totally "pants" as a way of thumbing-their-nose at the self importance of the whole scheme.

There cannot be anything remotely offensive or obnoxious or even inappropriate about it. Not even the Walt Disney corporation could object. But it is a delightfully puerile choice in a very British kind of way, as someone else pointed out. When all is said and done it is, after all, just the name for a frickin' boat. Like it really matters. The exercise itself is as pointless as the person who breaks a bottle of champagne over it at the launch ceremony, except its use as a marketing exercise for the people who are already getting a brand new boat bought for them at considerable tax payer expense. Meanwhile, back in the real world real people will be seen in tonight's BBC program:"Panorama - Too Poor to Stay Warm" being broadcast on BBC One on Monday 21 March at 20:30 GMT.

Yet global-warmers get a new 'ice breaker' to travel to where some of them said there wouldn't be any ice last summer. My personal take is that the great British sense of humour is making a more subtle point here about the bone they are being thrown from such largesse. Others may disagree of course, but that's humour for you: it is a very subjective thing.

Rudolph Hucker, if the Pole is heading to London, it could wreak havoc with the Oxford v Cambridge University Boat Race. They have had sinkings on TV footage, but never a true Titanic moment. It might increase the value of BBC TV rights when they broadcast to the world.